Berlino (for Mitsuko Natori)
“In 1980/81 I lived, as a guest of the D.A.A.D., in Berlin. Throughout those eighteen months I had a studio in the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien, Mariannenplatz, Kreuzberg, next to the wall. From the chimney top of that building I could look down into the wall and follow its course for a long way in both directions. I could see how it bisected streets, squares and even houses.
To become better acquainted with my new situation I decided to make a sound map, a score, a kind of aural geography of this structure. On a large map I located four “corners” in the wall surrounding West Berlin. These corners or “points” thus divided the wall into four sections. A straight line was drawn through each section from point to point. When the four sections were joined end to end, point to point, the map of Berlin became a very long straight line with the pattern of the wall zig-zagging and looping through it. Four more lines were drawn, evenly spaced and parallel to this center line, two above it and parallel to this center line, two above it and two below, creating a musical stave. The entire length of the wall was measured from the map in centimeters. The centimeters were then transposed into seconds so that distance became measured in time. The topographical or geometrical peculiarities of the wall were then divided into five categories and assigned letters (E,G,B,D,F). One strange formation of the wall, resembling the Horsehead Nebula, was given its own letter: X. The six categories of wall became: curved of crooked (E), straight (G), chaotic (B), canal (D), lake (F), and Horsehead Nebula (X). The complete score, for six different sounds, is endless, forming a loop, like the wall it describes.
For the version of the score realized on this record I chose six sounds from fragments of audio tape I had on hand. These are from cassette tapes of private studio activity. All of the sounds are acoustic and recorded with an open microphone. No “pick-ups” or “contact mics” were used.
The six sounds are:
E: The sound of an instrument being bowed in a large cavity beneath a sidewalk in San Francisco. The overhead end of a vertical piano wire is attached to the underside of a steel freight elevator door in the sidewalk. The lower end of the wire is attached to a large metal box which is partially suspended by the wire and provides tension and resonance for it. The wire is stroked with two violin bows. San Francisco 1978.
G: The sound of two parallel piano wires four meters long. They are attached at either end to a wooden floor and pass over wooden bridges. They are beaten with a long wooden chopstick held in one hand and inserted between the wires. Liege 1988.
B: The sound of the British Military helicopter which made almost daily passes along the wall at Mariannenplatz. This pass was taped from a window of my studio. Berlin 1980.
D: The sound of a single piano wire attached at one end to the metal frame of my stdio window and stretching ten meters to the opposite corner where it is attached to a wooden cupboard. The wire is repeatedly bowed, using a very thin steel bar. Berlin 1981.
F: The sound of rain, thunder and bells of the church at Mariannenplatz taped from my studio window. Berlin 1980.
X: The same instrument as “E” but taped on a different day, when it made sounds as strange as the shape of the Horsehead Nebula. San Francisco 1978.”
Terry Fox; Liege, August 1988
E (20”), X (1’10”), E (55”), G (26”), E (15”), G (34”), D (14”),
E (38”), D (12”), G (27”), E (15”), D (42”), E (20”), G (2’33”),
D (12”), E (35”), G (18”), B (1’50”), F (30”), E (17”), F (12”),
G (42”), E (50”), B (47”), E (21”), F (35”), …repeat
